“At last,” she whispers. She slides off the bed—plink, plink—and walks on trembling legs toward the window. “At last!”
What will He look like? How will He sound? Maybe there are special instructions that have been held back until now, because it was necessary that they be given to someone special. To her. Just to her. It was all a long test of her faith, and now it is done. She presses the buttons to work the window screen.
She sees the puffy face distorted through the glass and her excitement whooshes out of her. It’s not God. It’s Robert, a fat boy from her class. He is standing there sweating on the ledge that runs around the building, clinging to her sill. Poorly dressed, glasses skewed, his face confused and almost apologetic, as if he’s not sure he’s in the right place. He is wearing his clothes from the academy, though it is long after hours. Though they will never need to be worn again.
Robert must see it through the glass, the disappointment in Pea’s face, and she immediately feels bad. She presses the buttons and opens the window and Robert tumbles himself in over the sill and lands splat on her floor. Pea crosses her arms. She is in her thin gold nightgown. She has never talked much to boys in private. It’s the middle of the night, the last night. She tucks her hair behind her ears and waits while he pulls his thick clumsy body up to standing.
“Hey,” says Robert, obviously nervous, breathing loudly through his nose.
“This is really strange,” Pea says, “you being here.”
“I know,” he says, nodding vigorously. “I know.”
And then he takes a deep breath and they peer at each other. His imperfections are striking. His eyes bulge behind thick-lensed glasses. He’s got odd hair, black tufts that go off in all directions like a scattered herd. Pea is afraid that he’s never going to break the silence. Is he waiting for her to say something? But then—
“Pea, you are different than other girls. D’you know? I mean—different.”
“Oh,” she says. “Oh, God.”
She feels a cold rush of fear. How does he know? How did he find out? Does he know?
But then Robert suddenly starts talking again, a hundred miles an hour, wringing his hands together and looking everywhere in the room except at her. “I know this may seem crazy to bring this up to you now, but my heart has been with you since forever. I mean, not since forever but for a long, long time. Since pubescence, and probably sooner. Since Academy.”
The words at first are a confusing blur, but then at once Pea understands, and her fear dissolves into embarrassment—for herself. For him. What Robert means when he says that she is different is that she is special. He means that he likes her. She cups her face with her hands. She almost laughs but doesn’t. He doesn’t know her secret! He is confessing a crush. She looks up at him, holding her palm over her mouth. Of all the scenes to be playing out in her bedroom late at night, late on this night!
“I honestly Pea… I don’t even know what I would want you to do with this information…”
Robert has his hands in his hair, he looks wildly about her room, his confusion accelerating. He is sweating so much: his neck, his chin. His forehead. Pea resolves to put him out of his misery.
“I don’t really like you in that way,” she says suddenly, kind but firm, interrupting the heartsick monologue. “I’m sorry.”
Immediately, Robert nods. “That’s—I mean—sure. I knew that was coming, obviously. I guess I was expecting that. I mean, of course. Of course I knew you would say that.”
He laughs nervously. Pea smiles at him. She feels bad for him, but she doesn’t do anything like get up and take his hand or kiss him. She’s not the kind of person to do something like that just because of the weird circumstances. But there is something nice about this, right now. She has never had a boyfriend—never kissed a boy. These are pleasant things to be thinking about, even in the negative, instead of what is coming: the morning, the meal, the end.
And Robert, having unburdened himself, now seems almost relaxed. He takes the liberty of sitting down on Pea’s bed, and exhales, and even laughs.“I expected that, like I said. I mean, it’s funny, you know? It’s kind of a little hilarious. If I can’t get a girl to like me now, I guess it’s just not in the cards, right?” He laughs again. He has a snorting kind of laugh. “Now or never, right?”
“I guess so,” says Pea. “But, you know… pain will be a memory when we all go through. Pain will be a word in books.”
“Right,” he says. “Of course.”
This is something people have heard. Pea of course has never heard it. She feels cold inside. She looks past Robert, out the window. He gets up, paces back and forth a couple more times, with his hands locked behind his back like a politician.
“Robert?”
“I know, I know, I’m leaving,” he says. “It’s just — there’s one more thing.”
BRING HER TO ME.
Annabel sits in the dark in the basement of the building with her hands wrapped around herself, her fingers laced together, clutching her knees against her chest.
For many years now this has been her private place, down here in the storeroom of Building 170, among the scattered trophies from when things were good. This is where she comes to think. Where she comes to wrestle with her burden. Not Pea—never Pea; Pea herself is not a burden. She is a joy. It is Pea’s difference that is the burden. Pea’s deafness. The question of what God wants for Pea, what Annabel wants for her. Those are the burdens, and now the hour has come, now it is almost here.
BRING HER TO ME.
Annabel winces and clutches her ears as if the voice can be silenced. For many years she has taken the service elevator down here when it is working—or taken the stairs otherwise. She comes down here and sits in the dim night glow to think, away from Kenneth, away from the others, away from the Center.
Sometimes it even feels like God’s voice can’t reach her here, as if this subterranean place is hidden from Him, too buried for His voice to find her. Sometimes it feels like she is a little girl in the quiet world again, like when she was Pea’s age, before Jennifer Miller. A time of pure untroubled silence.
Sometimes it feels that way, but not all the time. Not tonight.
BRING HER TO ME.
“So—” Robert clears his throat and then lowers his voice. “What are you doing tomorrow?”
“What am I…” Pea is confused. She steps back, toward the bed. “You’re joking.”
“No.”
Robert shakes his head. His hands are still clasped behind his back and he is staring at the ground.
“No, I’m not joking, Pea. Is your family going through with it? Are you?”
Pea, still in her child’s gold nightgown, gapes at him. He had been anxious before, nervous, like a child. Now it’s as if Robert is growing up before her eyes, his agitation becoming more purposeful, somehow, more adult. His hand worries at his hair.
“Everybody’s going through with it,” she tells him.
He shrugs. Makes a sour face.
“Is your family going through with it?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Are you?”
He doesn’t answer. She stares at him. She feels the valves of her heart open, as if to allow an extra rush of blood. She pictures the kitchen counter, two floors down, where the meat lays in curled piles, waiting, the bloody pink slices of tartare.